LE 45 billion to prevent future train accidents - Shura member

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 12:03 PM

REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Chairman of the Shura Council (upper house of the parliament)'s Transport Committee, Mohamed Sadek Sherbini, said on Tuesday that the railway needs up to 45 billion Egyptian pounds to stop train accidents.

"After studies on enhancing the performance of the railway facilities, we concluded that for ensuring the safety of transport we should expand the automatic control of the train passage and reduce human intervention, which would cost 15 billion Egyptian pounds," Sherbini told Aswat Masriya.

The Shura member continued "we need another 30 billion pounds for the renewal and development of the railway system and vehicles, in addition to the duplication of routes in some places, especially in Upper Egypt."

Sherbini stressed upon the need to develop a new mechanism in order to prevent future accidents and radically solve this recurring problem.

A train traveling from Upper Egypt to Cairo derailed on Tuesday morning, killing 19 conscripts and injuring 107, in yet another traffic tragedy.

In a similar incident, 50 people, mostly children, were killed when a school bus crashed into a train in a city South of Cairo in November.

He shed the light upon the fact that the transport committee of the Shura council had warned of train accidents at the beginning of the current parliamentary session.

He said "we have met with railway officials and asked them about their needs to solve pressing problems in the railway."

Sherbini revealed that the transport committee held an urgent meeting on Tuesday to discuss the causes of this accident discussing how to avoid it in the future.

He added that another meeting will be held within the same frame on Thursday.

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